#moral of the story: leander prewett is a cringefail loser who i must defend with my life.

[rypnami]

So, elaborate for me.. Why Leander? Make me see it? Because I can't.

oh . ohohohoho. OHOHOHO. i have actually been gnawing at the bit for someone to ask this eventually because i could go on and on and on and on and on etc about why i latched on to him specifically!! i'm gonna put a wholeass essay under the cut for whoever cares!

so. why do i love leander so much? there are a few reasons. first of all:

he's a massive loser. i have always loved characters that are pathetic little guys, and the minute i saw him i could just tell he was a stupid dumb idiot who was going to need a defender.

i also, quite frankly, see a lot of myself in him. i was bullied in school, and i often acted a lot like he does. i tried to make myself look better than i was (especially in front of new kids at school), i overcompensated for everything, and generally being kind of annoying? so this all makes me think that he almost certainly gets bullied. i mean, we have the summoner's court kids basically saying he's the biggest loser around, zenobia calling him untalented, and in his first proper interaction with MC he almost gets himself crushed to death by a dragon skull. poor baby.

i always viewed his interactions with MC as him finally seeing the opportunity to make a new friend, but not quite knowing how. he already seems socially awkward to me (and bonus points, i HC he's autistic as well), and MC is THE cool new kid. by the time you properly meet him, MC has survived a dragon attack, single handedly taken down a troll, and depending if you've already started doing side quests, has been running about the highlands solving everyone's problems easily. i imagine he feels quite insecure, and so he tries to make himself look better (i.e. i definitely would have beaten sebastian in that duel, i fight with honour). also, he clearly doesn't think before he speaks, and so i think he just unintentionally comes off as a bit rude? like his comment about slytherins, if your MC is slytherin, then he immediately apologises because he didn't stop for 5 seconds to consider what he was about to say.

this bit from the art book basically confirms all my HCs about him being an insecure dork, which makes him very endearing to me!

i think a lot of these behaviours are just because he's, at the end of the day, a stupid teenage boy who doesn't know where he belongs. also in my HC he's got older siblings that are very accomplished, which on top of him clearly not being very good at magic and having basically no friends except garreth, probably doesn't help :(

obviously, he's not for everyone. but for me personally i just see him as a stupid baby who will eventually grow out of his insecurities and his more childish behaviour. either way i will always adore him and give him all the smoochies<3<3